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You Didn’t Fail; Your Expectations Were Shaped And Shattered · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is episode four in the series The Psychology of Emotional Deception.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the things I'm very struck by is that even when there is a realization that deception has taken place and probably over a very long period of time, people find it hard to let go.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think it's not so much a desire to hold on to the deception, but the part of the person that has been encouraged to expect good things has not yet been eradicated.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is quite important because one of the things that's occurred to me is about the nature of expectation.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there is almost a kind of self-deception based upon the notion that we expect certain things to happen, we expect certain sorts of outcomes, because those expectations are expressions of what we want.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: However, just because we have them doesn't mean that they're going to be realized, because sometimes those expectations are just unrealistic.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the disappointment that follows on is not because someone has actively disappointed us, it's because we have essentially disappointed ourselves.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then, of course, there is the other group where disappointment is concerned, and that is when someone has encouraged you to expect, who has been explicit in their in the things that they say, and they have almost planted the expectation within you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then when that behavior disappoints, you are left with the emotional and attachment injury that follows on.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, without trying to cast blame on anyone, I think it's really important to understand which of those two groups you might fit into.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing I would say is if you are somebody who says I always end up being disappointed, that is about you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, of course, it also means that you're somebody who may likely repeat those same behaviors because there's something in you that's unresolved, ungratified.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so you come back to yourself, and the question then becomes how does this keep happening?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not why, how?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it that is happening?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not easy because it means facing things in yourself which may feel quite unpalatable.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: What you tend to find is that those people who do the active disappointing, the ones who build the expectation and then shatter it, generally speaking, those people would also have a pattern of having done that before.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And those people tend to be very good at describing and offering accounts of all of the things that have gone wrong in their lives, friends, relationships, even family, and it's almost as if they can't believe that anything positive could be an outcome.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is about them, and that's not about you.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really quite important to see where you position yourself.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it is the case that you feel that you are somebody who has been encouraged to expect good outcomes, and that you trusted the person, you will inevitably experience significant emotional harm as a consequence when they let you down.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But that is about them.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a really important distinction.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't do anything wrong, and very probably you worked incredibly hard to try and maintain something, which in fact you can now see as just an illusion.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Very often, after this has been exposed, people feel embarrassed, they feel humiliated, they feel shame.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And shame and embarrassment and humiliation at the fact that they allowed themselves to be attached to someone who could treat them so badly.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Questions like, I should have left sooner, why didn't I?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And other things, weirdly, like, I can't believe I still miss them.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or why do I want an explanation from the person who hurt me?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: But attachment isn't rational, it's biological.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when a bond forms, the nervous system adapts to that bond.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oxytocin pathways development, uh develop, familiarity becomes a kind of regulation, intermittent reinforcement, which I think is really a little worrying when warmth is interspersed with withdrawal, and that actually strengthens the attachment in some cases because it keeps hope alive.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why trauma bonds can feel so powerful.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And from a behavioral perspective, the sort of unpredictability intensifies the rod circuitry, and the occasional return of warmth becomes disproportionately meaningful.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, from an attachment perspective, these are disorganized dynamics.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Love intertwined with threat creates confusion and injury rather than detachment, and the mind seeks resolution.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Often what the injured person longs for is not reconciliation but recognition.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to understand what they've done, I want them to admit it, and I want them to see me, who I am, what I've done, and the damage they have done.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a deeply human need because recognition restores some sense of coherence.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But here lies the difficulty.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: The deceiver's defensive structure depends upon denial, minimization, or narrative control.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: A genuine acknowledgement is very unlikely to be available.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the injured person faces a painful but necessary developmental task, and that is to generate internal recognition without external validation.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the beginning of separation at a psychological level.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Letting go is it forgetting, it's reorganizing the attachment internally, and that takes time.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: The good news, and there is good news, if you pay attention to what you've experienced and you validate it for yourself, you don't need the other person to do that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: You then become open to those who don't behave in that way, and that's where real growth can take place.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is very clear to me that people often ask, you know, is repair possible?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer is almost I doubt that very much.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way, seeking recognition from the person who has harmed you so much is also not likely to happen.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is because if they had that kind of awareness, integrity, and sense of personal responsibility, they wouldn't have harmed you in the first place.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, it really is.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I go back to this notion of expunging.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be deleted in some way.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't delete the memories, but what you can do is understand them differently and make sense of them.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as you do that, something shifts neurologically.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: You may find yourself experiencing a wide range of feelings, including intense rage.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You may find a desire that you experience a desire for retribution.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's fine.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to experience those things.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Acting on them is not a good idea.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I don't really need to say that, but I'm just don't want to read about anybody being arrested by the police.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Episode five and six will be coming soon.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as a footnote, I just want to remind you that the compendium of parenting guides is now available free to download from my website, thechildren's consultancy.com.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do have a look.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Although I'm not looking at these topics in particular, I'm looking much more at the psychoeducation of parenting.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But please do feel free to have a look, and I will talk to you next time.